A.how students remember English vocabulary by short-term memory B.how students learn English vocabulary C.how to develop students’ ability in English D.how long information in short-term memory is kept
A.
There are two kinds of memory: short-term and long-term. Information in long-term memory can be remembered at a later time when it is needed. The information may be kept for days or weeks. However, information in short-term memory is kept for only a few seconds, usually by repeating the information over and over. The following experiment shows how short-term memory has been studied.
B.
Henning studied how students who are learning English as a second language remember vocabulary. The subjects in his experiment were 75 college students. They represented all levels of ability in English: beginning, intermediate, and native-speaking students.
C.
To begin, the subjects listened to a recording of a native speaker reading a paragraph in English. Following the recording, the subjects took a 15-question test to see which words they remembered. Each question had four choices. The subjects had to circle the word they had heard in the recording. Some of the questions had four choices that sound alike. For example, weather, whether, wither, and wetter are four words that sound alike. Some of the questions had four choices that have the same meaning. Method, way, manner, and system would be four words with the same meaning. Finally the subjects took a language proficiency test.
D.
Henning found that students with a lower proficiency in English made more of their mistakes on words that sound alike; students with a higher proficiency made more of their mistakes on words that have the same meaning. Henning’s results suggest that beginning students hold the sound of words in their short-term memory, and advanced students hold the meaning of words in their short-term memory.
Most forest fires are caused by human carelessness or ignorance. Forest fire prevention, therefore, is mainly a problem of creating better understanding of the importance of forests, an awareness of the danger of fire in the woods, and a sense of personal responsibility to safeguard the forests from danger. This is not an easy job.
B.
Careless smokers are responsible for thousands of forest fires each year. Many of these are started when cigarette butts(烟蒂) and matches are thrown from automobiles. Others are caused by hunter, hikers(徒步旅行者), fishermen, or woods workers who are careless in disposing of their smoking materials. The Forest Service has posted rules in many of the National Forest that prohibit smoking except in certain designated (指定的)areas. Many of the states have laws against throwing lighted materials from automobiles. The prevention of smoker-caused fires, however, depends upon changing the attitudes and behavior of millions of people who smoke in hazardous(危险的) area.
C.
The most important natural cause of fire is lightning(闪电). This accounts for 11 percent of forest fires on protected and for the entire nation. In the Western States, lightning causes a much higher percentage of fires than it does in the East.
D.
Advances in knowledge of fire weather are helping forest protection forces to know when to be alert to lightning-caused fires. Adequate and well-equipped forces can control them quickly and hold the damage to a minimum. Experiments in "seeding" thunder clouds to control the lightning itself have been in process for many years, but new breakthroughs are needed for any significant reduction in the fires lightning starts.